He jerked a shoulder. "Floor was dirty when I left this morning, didn't
figure a little wet would hurt it any." Then he relaxed a little. It
always seemed to take him a few minutes to relax around Grace these
days. "But if I'd known you were here to skin me over it, I'd have left
him on the porch."
He was grinning when he turned, and she let out a sigh.
"Oh, give me the mop. I'll do it."
"Nope. My dog, my mess. I heard Aubrey."
Absently Grace leaned on the doorjamb. She was tired, but that wasn't
unusual. She had put in eight hours that day, too. And she would put in
another four at Shiney's Pub that night serving drinks.
Some nights when she crawled into bed she would have sworn she heard her
feet crying.
"Seth's minding her for me. I had to switch my days. Mrs. Lynley called
this morning and asked if I'd shift doing her house till tomorrow
because her mother-in-law called her from D.C. and invited herself down
to dinner.
Mrs. Lynley claims her mother-in-law is a woman who looks at a speck of
dust like it's a sin against God and man. I didn't think you'd mind if I
did y'all today instead of tomorrow."
"You fit us in whenever you can manage it, Grace, and we're grateful."
He was watching her from under his lashes as he mopped. He'd always
thought she was a pretty thing. Like a palomino--all gold and
long-legged. She chopped her hair off short as a boy's, but he liked the
way it sat on her head, like a shiny cap with fringes.
She was as thin as one of those million-dollar models, but he knew
Grace's long, lean form wasn't for fashion. She'd been a gangling,
skinny kid, as he recalled. She'd have been about seven or eight when
he'd first come to St. Chris and the Quinns. He supposed she was
twenty-couple now--and "skinny" wasn't exactly the word for her anymore.
She was like a willow slip, he thought, very nearly flushing.
She smiled at him, and her mermaid-green eyes warmed, faint dimples
flirting in her cheeks. For reasons she couldn't name, she found it
entertaining to see such a healthy male specimen wielding a mop.
"Did you have a good day, Ethan?"
"Good enough." He did a thorough job with the floor. He was a thorough
man. Then he went to the sink again to rinse bucket and mop. "Sold a
mess of crabs to your daddy."
At the mention of her father, Grace's smile dimmed a little. There was
distance between them, had been since she'd become pregnant with Aubrey
and had married Jack Casey, the man her father had called "that
no-account grease monkey from upstate."
Her father had turned out to be right about Jack. The man had left her
high and dry a month before Aubrey was born. And he'd taken her savings,
her car, and most of her self-respect with him.
But she'd gotten through it, Grace reminded herself. And she was doing
just fine. She would keep right on doing fine, on her own, without a
single penny from her family--if she had to work herself to death to do
it.
She heard Aubrey laugh again, a long, rolling gut laugh, and her